High pressure will stay in place over the eastern United States through the weekend. We will see sunshine and warmer temperatures through the weekend. High temps will rise into upper 80s to low 90s, Saturday & Sunday. We'll be pushing the record books on Sunday! The record high for Sunday in Norfolk is 92 degrees, set in 1898. We will have a chance of rain on Monday. Today: Mostly sunny. High 81. Tonight: Mainly clear skies. High 62. Tomorrow: Sunny and warmer. High 84.

By Sarah J. Pawlowski and spawlowski@dailypress.com | October 16, 2014

They say it's a lot like a cat and mouse game. Out on the choppy waters of the James River one recent morning, Virginia Marine Police watched and waited for watermen to make their way out to the oyster beds. Their job: Catch people violating harvesting regulations and crack down on poaching. Looking through binoculars from a distance, the officers try to see if a boat is harvesting in an approved area or poaching. If there's any question, they throw the boat into gear and race ahead.

In first-of-their-kind raids, the Middle Peninsula Drug Task Force begins a hunt for 24 people suspected of dealing crack in the county. State and federal agents joined Middle Peninsula deputies Thursday to hunt down 24 people suspected of dealing crack and wanted on more than 50 felony indictments in Middlesex County. The coordinated raids, dubbed Operation Market Garden, were the fruit of more than three months of undercover work by the Middle Peninsula Drug Task Force targeting street and midlevel dealers in Middlesex.

NEWPORT NEWS - For five years, Karyn Buhrman has lived next to an abandoned home so overgrown with trees and shrubs that she and her other neighbors call it the "the jungle. " The home, which has been vacant for nearly a decade, sticks out like a sore thumb in the middle of the quiet, well-kept Oyster Point-area neighborhood. "I've gotten poison ivy, ticks ... I've found dead possums and mice there," Burhman said. Buhrman has contacted the city many times over the years, but aside from cutting the grass, nothing has been done.

NEWPORT NEWS — Federal prosecutors said Thursday that 14 people have been charged in a wide-ranging crack down on white collar crime on the Peninsula. The list of those indicted includes a bookkeeper for a day care center charged with embezzling $40,000 from the company; a manager of procurement at a defense contractor accused of soliciting a kickback; and a Norfolk man charged with submitting $8,000 worth of false travel claims for treatment at the Hampton VA Medical Center.

Hot dogs, cold beer and the crack of the bat: What better way to kick off the week? The Norfolk Tides swing into Harbor Park on Monday for their home opener against the Charlotte Knights. The game starts at 7:15. Tickets are $8-$12 through Ticketmaster. Harbor Park is at 150 Park Ave. in Norfolk.

Antonio Randall claimed it was his appetite for crack cocaine and not his hunger that induced him to break into the same East End church three times within a week. Randall, 33, was charged with three counts of burglary, two counts of larceny and two counts of destroying private property. He was arrested about 9:40 p.m. Monday, said police spokesman Lt. Carl D. Burt. Burt said Randall, who gave an address in the 2000 block of Madison Avenue, is accused of breaking into St. John's Church of God in Christ, 2416 Orcutt Ave., April 3 and on two other occasions since then.

Driving 74 mph in a 55 zone while hauling crack cocaine is the kind of activity that leads to prison time. Just ask Andrew J. Diggs Jr. Diggs, of Hampton, was sentenced Friday to 17 years in federal prison for having 158 grams of crack cocaine in his car when he was stopped for speeding on Interstate 64. A state trooper found the crack, valued at $16,000, in November 1996 after stopping Diggs' Saab near the I-664 interchange. Diggs, 22, originally faced state drug charges, but his case was turned over to federal authorities when an investigation revealed he was a "substantial dealer on the Peninsula," said Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Murphy.

Investigators from the York County Sheriff's Office seized 11 ounces of crack cocaine Saturday, their second-biggest crack cocaine bust ever, said Capt. Ron Montgomery. The crack had a street value of $35,000, Montgomery said. Investigators also seized $21,000 in cash, he said. Nadine A. Grant, 22, of the 100 block of Grindstone Turn in Yorktown; Rudolph V. Murray, 32, of the same address; and Lisa M. Lewis, 23, of the 1400 block of Granada Court in Newport News, were arrested, Montgomery said.

Two alleged crack cocaine dealers were jailed Friday after police reportedly found them with 43 vials of the drug. Police made the arrests "just after they finished cooking it," said Capt. Sanford B. Chapman. The 43 vials recovered were ready for sale and worth about $1,000, he said. Charged were Sylvia Diane Mayfield, 29, of the 200 block of North Sixth Street, and Derrick Harold Gibson, 31, of New York City. Gibson allegedly commuted between New York and Suffolk to sell the drugs, Chapman said.

The Newport News School Board revised its student policy handbook last week to ban electronic cigarettes on all school property. The policy applies to staff, students and spectators at school-sponsored events. E-cigarettes have boomed in popularity in recent years, marketed by some as a safer alternative than traditional tobacco. But the industry has also drawn scrutiny from public health organizations who argue the devices are a gateway to nicotine addiction. "Right now, vapor nicotine devices are the new trend.

By Prue Salasky, psalasky@dailypress.com and By Prue Salasky, psalasky@dailypress.com | May 18, 2014

NEWPORT NEWS - Spice took over his life in middle school. Nothing else mattered. Being high became the norm. At 12, he picked up his first cigarette. Soon the Newport News teen, now 18, was smoking marijuana, too. "Cigarettes and weed," he said in a single breath, making no distinction. "Weed was just part of life. I smoked weed all the time - after school, every weekend. " Halfway through eighth grade, he moved on to spice, which had the advantage of being cheaper and, at the time, both legally obtainable and undetectable in drug screens.

NEWPORT NEWS - A white teddy bear clutches a cloth heart with the words "I love you" etched in red fabric. An unlit Christmas candle sits nearby. It's a makeshift memorial on display in the living room of Crystal Bryant's parents' home. They are things left by friends trying to say goodbye. Bryant, 21, was killed nearly two years ago - gunned down and left to die on a city sidewalk. The memorial is suspended in time, much like her violent death. It's a death that has gone unsolved as time has passed.

How could five assisted living facilities continue to operate — even take in new residents — when their licenses have expired, most lack qualified administrators and they all face numerous state violations? Because within the Virginia Department of Social Services, due process apparently moves very slowly. Last year, the operators of three facilities were stripped of their licenses after inspections revealed appalling conditions and problems, including medication mismanagement, inadequate food supplies, bed bugs, cockroaches, maintenance problems and stench.

RICHMOND – The Senate Courts of Justice Committee approved measures Monday that would increase penalties for illegally trafficking both taxed and untaxed cigarettes. Under current state law, buying cigarettes that already have a tax stamp from the commonwealth's Department of Taxation to sell in other states where cigarette taxes are higher -- a practice known as "smurfing" -- is a misdemeanor. Under the legislation proposed by the Virginia State Crime Commission in December after a yearlong study of the issue, smuggling 500 or more cartons of cigarettes that have a tax stamp would be a Class 6 felony for the first offense, punishable by up to five years in prison, and a Class 5 felony -- up to 10 years in prison -- on subsequent offenses.

HAMPTON - Hampton's city manager on Thursday ordered that the Police Division no longer raise and spend money in an undercover investigation - as it did in a recent black-market cigarette sting - unless the operation is specifically authorized by her office. City Manager Mary Bunting, who said police did not follow police procedures on travel and expenses in the multimillion dollar Blue Water Tobacco operation, said she wouldn't allow any such "churning" operations unless the attorney general's office says local police departments are authorized to run them.

A husband and wife accused of selling crack cocaine throughout the Peninsula since 1991 were arrested at their Hampton home Tuesday, police said. Michael Miguel Cowles, 24, and Lisa Marie Cowles, 31, of the 1300 block of Grimes Road, were mid- to high-level dealers, said Lt. D.V. Linhart. He heads the Colonial Narcotics Enforcement Task Force, a regional anti-drug task force involved in the two-year-long investigation that led to the arrests. The Cowles are the mother and step-father of Gregory LaMont Walker, the 7-year-old rapper featured in a front-page Daily Press story last month.

The Navy will pay $717,000 to fix a 21-inch crack in the hull of the USS Toledo. Northrop Grumman Corp.'s submarine-building partner, General Dynamics Electric Boat, was awarded the 65-day project, which will be conducted pierside at Naval Submarine Base New London in Groton, Conn. The project should be completed by early October. Workers will replace a 29-inch-by-40-inch hull casting on the topside hull of the Los Angeles-class sub and replace it while the Toledo remains waterborne, said Alan Baribeau, a Navy spokesman.

Marine researchers have spent 15 years trying to nail down the life cycle of a single-celled parasite fatal to blue crabs. On Thursday, they announced they cracked the case. "Describing the entire life cycle of the Hematodinium was an important breakthrough for us," said Jeff Shields at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) in Gloucester Point. "Having all stages in culture means we can now really start picking the life cycle apart to learn what the organism does and how it functions.

It's a little nerve-wracking the first time you do it. Your friends all say it's fun, but you just can't be sure. Hands wringing, armpits sweating, heart pounding, you give in. You let a teenager babysit your kids. Anxious, but giddy, my husband and I ventured out on our own. Would someone catch us? Would anyone call us bad parents? Would the kids eat their vegetables with dinner? As it turned out, that first time was good. It was great, in fact. We ate dinner in peace, my husband and I talked about current events, and we snuck home in the dark, tiptoeing past our sleeping children.